Aimee Mann: Charmer

In a recent episode of the Oregon-set comedy Portlandia, the singer Aimee Mann played herself — as a cleaner. “I apologise for downloading your last four albums and burning them for my friends,” says the woman whose house Mann is cleaning, shortly before berating Mann for shrinking her husband’s sweater. Presumably Mann, whose songs soundtracked Paul Thomas Anderson’s superb 1999 movie Magnolia, isn’t in quite such straitened circumstances, but you do realise how hard it is survive on quality of songwriting alone.

Charmer is Mann’s eighth album, and it’s an assured, accomplished collection of rock-pop songs that are cool but heartfelt, thereby slipping easily into both mainstream and alternative worlds. Mann’s skill is in economy. The title track contains just enough hooks to demand your…